Help could be coming for residents of an apartment complex abandoned late last year by real estate investment group Vision & Beyond.
Cincinnati City Council's Budget and Finance committee will consider a request from the city manager Monday for $400,000 to fix a critical sewage leak at the Kirby Apartments in Mount Airy. If the committee approves the funding, full Council will need to vote on it Wednesday before the funds can be spent.
Kirby resident Ray Prophett told WVXU last month his kitchen and bathroom back up with foul-smelling water sometimes, but that some of his neighbors have bigger problems — possums and raccoons in the walls, ceilings caving in, and more.
"My apartment's not as bad as some of the other issues," he says. "But I hate to come home and that's the first thing I smell."
One of Prophett's neighbors showed a WVXU reporter sewage backed up into her bathtub during a visit in mid-May. The unoccupied unit across from hers had standing water and sewage on the floor. Water was gathered in large puddles in the hallway between units.
A return visit in early June revealed a portable pump mechanism behind the complex, presumably to mitigate flooding. But inside, even larger puddles of water and sewage had gathered in lower-level hallways. Several residents who did not want to be named complained of bats getting into their units, a collapsed walkway into one of the buildings and other issues.
A city inspector told Hamilton County Judge Christian Jenkins last month the complex would need to be vacated if the sewage leak isn't fixed. An estimated 63 of the complex's 116 units remain occupied.
Marcy Frasier is a tenant at another former Vision & Beyond building and a representative of a union formed by residents of several of the company's former properties. She told Cincinnati City Council May 21 conditions at Kirby Apartments were urgent.
"It is unacceptable for elders and disabled tenants, children and working families, to wait any longer for a new plan," she said. She urged the city not to allow the building to be vacated.
The complex and about 70 other properties are caught up in a complicated legal battle in Hamilton County Courts between investors and creditors of Vision & Beyond.
A June 4 report by court-appointed temporary property manager Prodigy Properties acknowledged sewage backups were happing weekly at Kirby. But Prodigy has argued it has no money to fix that problem and those at many other properties.
The 243-page report details a vast number of problems at some of the other former Vision & Beyond properties. One apartment building in Lockland also had severe sewage leaks. Another in Avondale is so far behind on utilities that tenants there could lose water service "at any time."
Further funding for repairs is on hold as investors who say they were dupped by Vision & Beyond and mortgage lenders who issued loans on their properties continue a legal fight over ownership and control of the buildings.
The company's co-founder Stas Grinberg is in the Butler County Jail awaiting indictment on federal fraud charges. Federal attorneys May 30 requested an extension until July 10 to file that indictment, citing a request from Grinberg's primary attorneys to be excused from the case and ongoing efforts to reach a deal with the defendant.
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